Jun 29, 2023
On today’s episode, Mike has on Kasey Luft of Clientric CRM Consulting. As a business owner, you need to know your business inside & out. Kasey saw businesses making the same mistakes over and over again. He realized businesses can thrive with the proper processes, and the best way to do this is by streamlining and automating the sales process. Today Mike & Kasey talk about optimizing CRM’s, leveraging your CRM to reflect into your business, what do you want to know about your business, mastering your CRM, and getting your team on board with your CRM! Kasey also shares with us the top 3 things to look for when choosing a CRM platform!
Mike & Kasey talk on optimizing your business on 2023 and how a CRM might be the move for your business to level up!
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency:
Yeah, so we've been here, what, 20 minutes late on the start time.
Shout out
Kasey Luft:
Dude, right,
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency:
to
Kasey Luft:
you're on that.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency:
Riverside.fm, my camera, it's a cable, it's all these different
things. But all that to say, here we are, episode 44 with Casey.
What's up, Casey?
Kasey Luft:
Hey Mike, how's it going?
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency:
It's going well. Hey, question, did you know that pupils, they're
the last part to stop working when you die as far as your body's
concerned? You know that?
Kasey Luft:
I did not know that.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency:
They die late.
Kasey Luft:
What is concerning is that you know that.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency:
They die late. pupils dilate. Yeah.
Kasey Luft:
Hahaha
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency:
Okay. Well, they don't all land folks, but you keep on moving.
Shout out
Kasey Luft:
Hey!
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency:
to Roofherb for bringing this podcast to life in conjunction with
Ascend Digital Agency. If you need clean and pristine proposals,
instant roof measurements, hit up the team at Roofherb. They're
great. Tell them we sent you. There's a link in the comments. Click
it. So, Casey. You've done some things in CRM once or twice,
yeah?
Kasey Luft:
I have done some things in CRM just a couple times, yeah.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency:
That sounds fucking awful.
Kasey Luft:
It's hit and miss. You have good days, you have bad days. You
know,
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency:
Sure.
Kasey Luft:
just like we had technology issues today. Ha ha.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency:
Well, hopefully the issues persist so that you can keep getting new
projects and solving the world's issues, one CRM workflow at a
time.
Kasey Luft:
Exactly.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency:
I've got a lot of questions.
Kasey Luft:
I have answers.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency:
Why do people need a CRM? Let's say roofers or contractors.
Kasey Luft:
Yeah, people need a CRM because they need to increase their
efficiency, increase the amount of deals or jobs they can handle at
any given time. People without a clear idea of their systems, the
pipeline are struggling, their systems are chaotic. And we've
talked to a lot of people, a lot of people come up to us and say,
Like my business is chaos. I feel like I'm running around like a
chicken with my head cut off and I have no idea what's going on. I
don't know how to direct the ship and I'm just struggling to keep
my head above water. A properly set up CRM technology system does
that for you. You don't have to think about it. It provides you a
list of jobs that need to be dealt with today, a list of tasks that
need to be dealt with today. It can essentially create your task
list for you throughout that day. And so it's so important to get
your head on right and to get your business running smoothly. And
that's why I see your Amazon.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency:
If you had to say three things as far as trying to figure out what
CRM is the right fit for you, what are the three things to
consider?
Kasey Luft:
One is budget. That's gonna be probably the biggest one that most
people come to us with. What's it gonna cost? The second is the
fact that you need to have internal resources. How much do you
wanna know? How much do you want to have a hand in creating it? How
much do you need to know as a leader or as a management? you know,
higher up on the leadership team, how much do you actually need to
understand of the system in order for it to function properly? And
I would say the last thing is how complicated is your business? Do
you have a good idea of what your business actually does? Have you
mapped it out? So those are three components that you ultimately
need to be able to answer, at least at a high level, in order to be
able to choose a CRM. And in order for it to be not only a CRM that
meets your needs now, but meets your needs five years from now. And
that's what a lot of people forget.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency:
Yeah, and I've been through this. You know, we were working in a
system that didn't meet our needs down the road from when we
started. And, you know, it's I tell everybody to get started sooner
than later. You know, I've talked to guys that they're doing. see
it in the pants and like it's great until it's fucking not and what
it's gonna take to get four people on CRM and system and processes
associated with that is a lot more challenging than doing it now
when it's just you. So become the master of it, understand it, and
then... for those people because it won't be the...
Kasey Luft:
Yeah. Exactly.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency:
Can a CRM increase your closing percentage on sales?
Kasey Luft:
If used right, if it's used as a tool, absolutely it can. So it can
actually help you follow up, help you create tasks related to
ensuring your team is doing the things they need to do. So it
creates reminders, it can automate follow-up processes. So it can
actually increase this because these jobs, these deals are not
falling through the cracks. And that's the biggest thing. So that's
what I tell people. is it's not so much going to do it for you, but
it helps you do your job better. And if you're doing your job
better, you're gonna be able to close more leads, you're gonna be
able to sell more projects, and you're gonna drive revenue and
profits because of that.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency:
What are some of the biggest challenges that you see people running
into when they retain your services to work on their CRM?
Kasey Luft:
Yeah, the biggest challenge is the fact that they don't know what
they want their business to do. They don't have a clear vision of
what they want their... they might know what they want to do now,
but they don't have a clear roadmap or a clear vision of what they
want their business to do one, three, five years from now. And
without that vision, it's really, really difficult for us to help
plan for their future. So just saying this is what we do right now,
that's great. But if you don't know, you know, if your goals as a
business owner are to scale and grow to 5 million, 10 million,
well, that is actually really important as to how we can go about
setting things up. If you don't know how you want your production
to be scheduled, if you don't know how you want your materials to
be ordered, if you're not sure what tools you wanna use, obviously
there's a ton of tools out there for, you know, ordering materials
or getting the measurement information for takeoffs, things like
that. it's really imperative that you know that ahead of time to
build those integrations, to build that streamline process. So if
you don't have that kind of thought out ahead of time, if you're
like, oh, we're gonna use this tool, this tool, you have five tools
you're utilizing, it's gonna be very difficult for someone to plan
how to use these tools more effectively in the overall architecture
of the system.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency:
That makes a lot of sense, and it's tough sometimes to say, you
know, in five years I want to be doing this because things change.
But, to have a tentative understanding of where you want to go and
putting some thought and energy behind that is important. You know,
and as you tell me that, I kind of think of, like, the first thing
that came to mind, this is not financial advice, so don't take it
as such. But, like, I think of, like, an investment strategy,
right? Like, day trading and the way that you're gonna go execute
and the methodology that you're gonna deploy when you're day
trading is gonna be substantially different than your 401K and your
long- right? And
Kasey Luft:
Absolutely.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency:
depending on how old you are, it's also going to dictate how you
invest your money, right? If I'm super young, which I'm not, so
whatever, but if I'm super young I'm likely going to be more
aggressive or whomever is handling you know my investments are
going to be more aggressive because I have more time to rebound if
there is a huge dip versus if I'm 61 we're probably gonna be more
conservative because there's a lot more to lose. But that's all
understanding context and kind of where... things inside when
you're investing your money. And same thing with CRM.
Kasey Luft:
Absolutely.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency:
Yeah.
Kasey Luft:
And I'd say that's the same thing with honestly any business. Like
we all as business owners, as my own business owner, I struggle to
picture what my business will look like one year, three year, five
year, 10 year. Like I absolutely get it. And so that's where we
kind of come in and be like, well, what do you want? Do you want
this? Do you want that? And so we can kind of guide people along
the way if they're not sure and showcase like, these are the
different options available to you. And this is how you could use
these different tools more effectively. So even just having a
conversation with someone to kind of pull that out. whether it's
your internal team or you're looking and talking with a consultant
like myself or yourself, what do you want your digital marketing
strategy to be? That's a big question for a lot of businesses. And
so if you can actually come back and have a conversation with your
internal team or talk with someone about it, because a lot of
business owners feel they need to do it themselves. Even the
business coach, I know we've like all of these things out there
that can help you pull out the information you need to be more
successful, utilize it, utilize those resources as much as
possible, utilize your team. to be more effective. And then you can
pull that information out so that when you go to someone or when
you start planning strategically, you actually are able to use
information that you've gathered throughout this process. And
that's really, really important.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency:
Are there any CRMs, if you ever run into a circumstance where
somebody's trying to divest from one CRM going to another one and
there's been an issue securing their data and transferring it.
Cause I know that's been
Kasey Luft:
Yep.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency:
the trepidation with clients in the past. I don't do CRMs, but
they're like, we want to do this, but this company is telling us
that it's something they own today, kind of holding hostage.
Kasey Luft:
Yeah, and I, I hate those companies. I think it's ridiculous. You
as a business, it's your data, you should own it. If you're not
owning your data, and I'll actually take this back to one of those
first questions you asked, you should look up and see who actually
owns the data and make sure that it fits with your potential
long-term strategy. If you want access to this data, how easy is it
to get out? How easy can you pull reports? Most places, most
software will, you know, you kind of have to go under the radar a
bit. And that's kind of how we typically do it with those
companies. I can think of a few, I won't name names, but I know
there's a few out there that struggle with that. And they make it
really, really difficult. They can make it super easy for you to
pull out their information. And we've had some clients in the
roofing space, in the legal space. And in the legal space, it was
like talking to a wall. You couldn't, like when you told them, hey,
we're actually migrating. they just stopped communicating with you
because they don't wanna lose your business and they're gonna make
it as difficult for you as possible.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency:
Sure.
Kasey Luft:
And in order to get some information out, and there's two different
types of information you need to get. You need to get the
information that's in the record itself. So like the text fields,
the name, the address, that stuff. What's almost trickier are the
files. So the images that you're taking on a job site, how do you
get those out? Those are stored in a different area. Those are very
difficult to get out because... they are in, think of it like a
drop box location, right? They're hosted on a server somewhere in
some location and it's actually more difficult to get that out than
some of the other records. So you have to be very careful when
you're pulling that information out. And so we kind of go
underneath the radar and we ask, oh, we need this information. We
need that information. We're not telling them anymore that our
clients are moving and migrating to another tool because that's
when the prickly hairs pop up and they just stop helping. So if you
can kind of go under the radar and, you know, ask nicely, like,
hey, we need these images out. And then you just use that
information to start pulling more and more out. They're not gonna
help you get the information out. It's on you.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency:
Yeah, and you know it's kind of the same thing when you're
switching with an agency from one to another. You know, you kind of
have the conversation like try to get access to Google Analytics,
try to get access to Google Search Console. You know, because if
you send them a breakup text, they're not going to be as obliged to
accommodate you. You know, they're going to be spiteful, they might
be petty. Maybe they won't be, who knows? But if we're playing the
odds here, when you give people bad news, they're more likely to
have negative emotions towards you, and if they feel negative
emotions towards you, So, let's play the
Kasey Luft:
Absolutely.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency:
odds. And let's just, you know, maybe not tell them. We'll be
sneaky.
Kasey Luft:
Hehehe
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency:
So, well then that makes me think, right? So, because I know as
owning a marketing agency, you know, there's two dozen questions
you should ask a marketing company. as far as like, hey, do I own
my website? Will I own my domain? Will I own my ad account? Am I
gonna have access to reporting? What are expectations? Like there's
certain things that you should ask to have a clear understanding of
who you're getting in bed with, so to speak. What are the questions
that a contractor considering a CRM should ask the representative
of that CRM to make sure that they're not landing in a precarious
situation and finding out?
Kasey Luft:
Yeah, I think data control is absolutely one of them. Data security
is another one. How secure is your system? Now, a lot of people
take that for granted and the roofing industry definitely needs to
take some notes from some other industries and make sure that, like
your information is secure. There's been a lot of issues with data
breaches recently. And... Working with our legal clients in the
data breach space, it's really eye-opening how easy it is for some
people to just take advantage of that and how easy it is for other
people to push lawsuits on you because of that too. So it's
something that you wanna be careful of. As well, just as a side
note to better understand and ask those good questions. And then
I'd say, what are your support? What is your support like? How
quickly am I gonna get support if I send an email versus let's say
a chat versus this other method? Is there a need for further
support? Do they help with setting up the system? Do they help with
training and getting you trained up as well? And I know most places
do, which is great, but understanding what that actually means,
just because they are actually gonna train you on how to use the
tool doesn't mean they're gonna train you well or they're gonna
train you in a way that you learn. So I think understanding that a
little bit more effectively as to what goes into their training
process. how what goes into their support process. Just getting
more information and asking those deeper questions. People don't do
enough of that. People just ask that surface level question and
they think that's enough. But in order to get to that four years
down the road, like you said, you really need to dive into those a
little bit deeper.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency:
yes all what's your
Kasey Luft:
Yeah, my answer is the tool we use that we really push for and try
to build out for people is that, it's as secure as it can possibly
be. It's a SaaS application. It has its own web portal. It has its
own functionalities. It's as secure as you could possibly be right
now in the current state. And if you want more information, I'd be
happy to share with you their security protocols and things like
that. But typically I won't dive into that unless they really
ultimately ask. But I'm open and honest and say like, This is stuff
that you're probably not gonna understand, but I can provide that
for you and actually can get a rep from the security team to talk
with you about it in case you're worried about that.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency:
Yeah, that's a good point. Because if I'm not up to speed on
internet security and these protocols, it's going to be very
hard
Kasey Luft:
which
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency:
for
Kasey Luft:
most
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency:
me
Kasey Luft:
people
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency:
without
Kasey Luft:
aren't.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency:
that.
Kasey Luft:
Let's be
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency:
Right,
Kasey Luft:
real.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency:
if we don't have that, it's going to be very hard to sort through
without that level of sophistication and understanding. I'm
assuming most sales reps would be like, it's very secure. And it's
like, OK, is there a simple thing at that point that the contractor
could say to be like, OK, send me the protocol. what level of
encryption is it or whatever the case may be. Or like you said,
talk to the security team.
Kasey Luft:
Yep, yep, ask us to talk to someone from the security team or
someone who actually knows that and can convince you that, you know
what, like, it's not gonna be an issue. Yeah, absolutely. The more
you ask, the better off you're gonna be and they're gonna, the
company, the software company might go either way on this,
depending on, you know, hey, this is more work, I don't. want to
deal with this person anymore, this person's needy, that could
happen, but that's also a red flag. If they're not willing to share
with you and follow up on this, then that also is like an extra,
you know when you're going through your hiring process and you're
putting hoops for people to jump through, it's an extra hoop for
that salesperson to say, hey, you convinced me, how are you gonna
convince me? You want me to use your product? You convinced me that
it's worth it. The salespeople, the software that's gonna go the
extra mile to showcase this for you, whether it's. security,
support, all these other things that you're asking about, you're
gonna have a better relationship with. If they don't go the extra
mile and they're just looking for a quick sale, that's a red flag
for me.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency:
Are there CRMs that work for the guy that's doing a half million,
work for the guy that's doing five million, work for the guy?
Kasey Luft:
There absolutely are.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency:
Or gal.
Kasey Luft:
There are, yeah, I mean, you're actually gonna find two sides of
the coin here. You're gonna find fully customizable solutions,
which absolutely do work, but those fully customizable solutions
are gonna require more input on your end. It's gonna require more
effort for you to understand if you're only a $500,000 business. If
you're a $5 million business, you likely have some funds available
to hire someone to do it for you, so you don't have to be as in the
weeds as you maybe would otherwise. Then you have the out of the
box solutions and the Acculinks, Rufr, JobNimbus, those are the out
of box solutions. Well, Rufr coming up here shortly with their CRM.
So all of these tools are gonna have a process for you already in
place. And that's why they're great because you don't have to think
about it. And so when you're actually creating this and you have to
be careful in the future, will this meet my needs in the future?
And that's the question you need to ask. in three years from now,
when we're doing, if you're a 500K company and you wanna be a $5
million company, how many clients do you need? How many customers
need to be going through the door? How many crews do you need? Are
you gonna have inventory? Are you not gonna have inventory? At a
high level, have an understanding of whether that tool will be able
to serve you at that point in the business lifecycle. Whereas some
of these other more customizable ones, they will easily fit that
role. from now until then, but it's just the amount of time and
energy and effort you put into it upfront or the money that you're
able to put upfront to ensure that it's set up the right way at the
beginning. Ha ha ha!
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency:
I got a question. So if I'm doing seven and a half million, and I
got, you know, let's say I've got a fully customized solution, and
I wanna bring someone like yourself on, right? And I'm like, I'm
just gonna bring on a console, and this is what they do, this is
what they're good at, I'm really bad at this, let's hire someone.
What are the questions I should ask you?
Kasey Luft:
That's a great question. How are you gonna help me go from X to Y?
That's gonna be the number one. What can you do or what is your
service gonna be able to do to get me there? And then my rebuttal
to that would be, where do you wanna go? How do you wanna get
there? What do you need in order to get there? So it's a lot of
information sharing at the end of the day. It's being open to talk
with a potential consultant about what your goals are. what your
ambitions are to really help them get to know you and your business
to understand. So with that, I would also ask, what is the
structure of your team? How many people do you have? Are you gonna
be able to take on the complexity? If I feel it's really complex,
if my roofing business is, we're gonna need bookkeeping, we're
gonna need or accounting systems, we're gonna need invoicing,
inventory, all this stuff. Do you have a team who can handle that?
Who's gonna be able to handle that on your team? Do you have the
ability to scale and grow? That is another thing. as well just to
be asking these types of questions. Understand who's gonna be doing
the work. Understand who's gonna be managing the project. Likely
the person you're talking to, if someone's coming to me, I'm not
gonna be on your project. I'm helping get you to a point that I can
pass you on to other members of my team because they do that better
than I do. I'm here to help and provide initial guidance for
people. but my team is really good at what they do on the backend.
And so I'm gonna push them, push you onto them because they're
gonna get into the weeds with you. I can't do that. And I recognize
that. So knowing the company that you're gonna work with, knowing
their limitations as individuals, what they know and what they
don't know is also gonna be really helpful so that you know who to
go to. And then lastly, I'd say, what's your support like? What if
I have a question? What's your response time gonna be? That's
always a big one too, right? Like, you know, if my system is going
down right now, How am I gonna be able to get it up and running?
Like it's a high priority, like nothing's working. If I can't get
leads in the door, like that's business 101. If you don't have
that, you're fucked.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency:
Yeah, or contracts, right? Like, hey, my contracts aren't selling.
Like, what the fuck? I gotta, yeah. I can see that being very
frustrating. Hmm. So, and those are really good points, and I think
those will be helpful for anyone watching this. So I'm assuming,
and this is an assumption, you can correct me if I'm wrong, just
say shut up, Mike, when I'm wrong, but my assumption would be,
like, if we're building out a customized solution, there's gonna be
a lot of things that are going to... things fire, things like Zap
your connection, things like that, to create these automations. So,
as a consultant, I pay you X amount of dollars to build out this
customized solution, let's call it Zoho, let's say we're using
Zoho, and I'm gonna pay you and you're gonna fix up my Zoho real
nice, and then I stop paying you. Do I have to be concerned that my
Zaps and my automations are gonna be disconnected?
Kasey Luft:
So I can't answer for every consultant that's out there. Some
people are gonna have more control. I would say the biggest way to
address that concern is you own everything. As a business, make
sure you own everything. So if you are using the consultant's
Zapier, that's a red flag because you are always gonna be slightly
dependent on them to fix that when it goes wrong. Set up your own
Zapier, give them access to it. You wanna make sure that you have
full control of everything that you do and that you can remove
their access. Let's be honest, like relationships deteriorate and
at some point you may need to remove someone from these systems. We
understand that fact. And so we make sure that our clients are set
up with everything they need on their side. Their credit cards are
paying for it. They're the ones that are managing it. They have the
capability to manage it. And something we do quite... quite heavily
and I'm not sure if you use this tool in your business or not, but
we use Loom quite heavily to send video screen recordings between
our internal team and to our clients to train them. So our goal is
by the end of any engagement that you know what to do. And you're
not depending on us for like the day-to-day maintenance of your
system. It doesn't make sense for us. It's not worth our time. I'll
be honest. It's not worth your time as well. So if you're not
trained up on the system and ready to go, and that's where you need
to take ownership too, you need someone on your team to champion
this so that doesn't happen, and you're left flat-footed and
dependent on someone else. So aim to never be dependent on anyone
else, if you can help it.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency:
Yeah, that's a good point. I think where I take issue with these
types of situations is where there's a lack of transparency. So
there could be a solution where maybe this consulting company
charges significantly less because they're playing more lifetime
value to the customer. So they charge less and they have control.
And that's just their business model. And if you agree to that and
you understand that, then that's okay, right? It's the same thing,
there's companies that, they'll charge you 200 bucks a month for a
website. And it's gonna be kind of a cookie cutter. but it's better
than nothing, but you're usually gonna lease that website. The
problem is that most sales reps won't tell you that you leased it.
So three years into your engagement, you're like, you know, we're
gonna move on. And it's like, well, we own your domain and your
website, so what the fuck are you gonna do? And it's like, well, I
gotta start over, or I gotta stay with you. So it puts you in a
precarious situation because of the lack of transparency. So I
agree, if you can own your assets, you absolutely should, but I
don't think it's always bad. I think that what really bothers me is
when there's not transparency in people. until it's too late.
Kasey Luft:
Yeah, I would absolutely agree with that. And I'd say that's
actually something that, this is why I err more on the other side,
because many of our clients have already been taken advantage of
and they come to us frustrated. And they come to us pissed off
because they've had a deal with shitty consultants who have taken
advantage of them because they don't know any better at the end of
the
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency:
Yeah.
Kasey Luft:
day. They don't know what they don't know and which is fair. And so
they don't know what to ask those questions. And so they get taken
advantage of and it's just not good for anyone. And so you're left
in this shitty situation and then we're left to pick up, you know,
the pieces and they're already frustrated, you know, and they may
not be willing to spend much more money because they may have sunk,
you know, $50,000 into this project already and they're pissed off
and they're frustrated. And then they're just more frustrated that
they could spend more money to redo the things that they already
had. And it's just, it's not great for anyone to be in that
situation. I'm sure you've,
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency:
Yeah.
Kasey Luft:
you've come across that before too.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency:
Oh yeah, I mean we're like the second or third person that people
come to because we're not cheap. But we're good. And hey, it's not
me saying it, it's what our customers say. So, you know, if you got
beef, talk to them.
Kasey Luft:
I would agree with that.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency:
Quit hating. But honestly, like especially when you're investing in
things like that back in two, like go talk to some current
customers they have. Ask them to talk to three people that they've
done, the most three recent builds that they've done. One that
they've just launched, one they launched six months ago, a year
ago. Because, you know, the other side of it is some people get
really fucking hype. You could be halfway through a build and the
experience could be really good. So if you call me and we're
working together, I might be like, yeah, Casey's fantastic. It's
fucking great. He knows everything and this isn't an attack at you,
but like you can launch it and that thing could go to shit. And
then
Kasey Luft:
Totally.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency:
it's like, well, I just endorsed you to seven different people
because the experience was great. But the efficacy of the actual
product. wasn't there. You can say the same thing about the Senate.
If you're excited about us building your website and we show you
the homepage, it's fantastic. Okay, great. We go to show you the
recipe and you're like, this sucks. But you've already been
screaming about how great we are. And that's why I say, you know,
make sure that you talk to people at different stages of the
relationship because then that can really speak to what to expect
from that company, much more so than a
Kasey Luft:
Totally.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency:
sales rep who's motivated financially to sell. His family gets fed
from him selling you. So there's a bias there. There's an inherent
bias that he's going to try to get you to purchase. So I've seen it
in the past. I'm not blasting sales people. I've seen it in the
past where maybe they withhold a little bit of information or maybe
they tweak the way that they deliver the message and the framing of
it to where, you know, people want to pick up on it if you're not
intimately familiar with the subject. It's a long saying.
Kasey Luft:
And within kind of our industry, especially in the technology
space, it's very easy to use technology, technological mumbo jumbo,
that sounds really fancy. And people have no clue what it means.
It's easy, that's what salespeople's main tactic is. They just, oh,
I'm just gonna start rambling off, you know, this security protocol
that you've no idea, SHA256, you're not gonna know what that means,
but they're gonna
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency:
Right.
Kasey Luft:
say, oh yeah, because of that it's secure.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency:
Yeah, exactly. And you know, there was a recent double-blind
independent study that suggested that 97% of the people that are
saying proprietary are completely full of shit. I'm kidding. There
wasn't a study, but in my
Kasey Luft:
Hahaha
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency:
experience, in my experience, that's somebody waving a huge fucking
red flag, alright? They
Kasey Luft:
A
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency:
started
Kasey Luft:
double
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency:
to...
Kasey Luft:
blind study, that's pretty impressive on that. Ha ha ha.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency:
What is one thing that somebody can do or have done relatively
easily within the CRM that they're using, any CRM that would make a
meaningful difference?
Kasey Luft:
Honestly, map it out. Walk through your steps. Map out, there's
plenty of different mapping process, workflow tools. I'm a very
visual person, so that's what we use with our clients. Maybe you're
not visual, but I still suggest that it's the best learning tool
for your team to understand how everything works. Map it out and
see. where the inefficiencies lie. Once you, like, it's amazing
when we go through this process, when we talk with our clients,
they said, tell me what you do right now. And they're like, oh, we
do this. And I was like, oh, I think we do this. But sometimes we
do that. And like, this is kind of like a circle that we put on the
map saying, hey, this is an area that you need to focus on
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency:
We've
Kasey Luft:
and get
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency:
got
Kasey Luft:
clear
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency:
no fucking
Kasey Luft:
on
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency:
clue,
Kasey Luft:
and build
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency:
it turns
Kasey Luft:
SOPs
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency:
out.
Kasey Luft:
around. Yeah.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency:
Yeah.
Kasey Luft:
So even just by sitting down, talking with your team. production
level team, sales members, like what is your process? Like a lot of
people just don't have a clue what they do. So if you just sit
down, map it out, you're gonna get more granularity. You're gonna
see, okay, this is a bottleneck. How do we fix that? Does it need
to go to this person? Can we set up automations here? It is
actually really simple, but a lot of people just don't take the
time to sit down and even map it out.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency:
That's an incredible point. And even if you think about it, the
assumption that, hey, I think, we're super busy, right? And we can,
the process can change over time, and we can assume this is the
process, and I'm sales, and the marketing team can assume this. So
there's a disconnect while you think you both know the process, you
really don't. And that would be an opportunity to very easily point
that out and address it and make sure that everybody's on the same
page. That's fucking great. Yeah.
Kasey Luft:
Yeah. And then internally, you can use that as a training tool for
new members when they get onboard. And that's something that's not
done enough. Like, hey, this is what we build the SOPs off of. This
is how you can understand what we do. Whether you're marketing,
whether you're sales, whether you're production, whether you're a
site supervisor, whether you're on the roof crew, if you're giving
people more insight to how the business works, it allows them to
connect with the business more effectively so that they can
understand the mission, the vision, and values that you are
creating within the business and the difference that you're making.
Thank you.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency:
Mmm, preach. That's good. Well, dude,
Kasey Luft:
I'm gonna
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency:
I
Kasey Luft:
have
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency:
am
Kasey Luft:
to take
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency:
so...
Kasey Luft:
a few of these snippets as well.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency:
Yeah, we're gonna, listen, we're gonna get you out there. This is
awesome. And then
Kasey Luft:
Ha ha!
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency:
what we're gonna do is we're gonna cliff hang because there's gonna
be a part two because in light of all the technical issues that we
had leading up to this, my battery's at 6% and I don't want to get
cut
Kasey Luft:
Oh...
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency:
off. I got a real problem with people dictating when things end,
like, you know, Riverside.fm or my camera or... So I'm gonna end it
initially here before it dies. And dude, I wanna say thank you for
all this information. It was absolutely incredible. There's no
doubt in my mind. I get asked these questions all the time. So
we're gonna chop it up. People are gonna watch the whole episode.
And if people wanna reach out to you directly and inquire, what's
the best way for them to do?
Kasey Luft:
Yeah, reach out directly is my email. So Casey KSEY at
clientric.co. So we're clientrics here, I'm consulting Casey at
clientric.co and that's just my email. You can also come to us on
our website at www.clientric.co and reach out and fill out our
contact us form and we'll get back to you as soon as we can.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency:
Again, I appreciate you brother. Thank you to all you at home, in
your truck, everywhere else listening. And thank you to Rufor,
because you guys help make this happen. We really do appreciate
you. And we gone. Yeah, man.
Kasey Luft:
Thanks Mike.